Academic Travel Seminars

Leading an Academic Travel Seminar is an excellent opportunity to internationalize your curriculum and allow students to explore a specific topic in a new cultural context.

Academic Travel Seminars are international or domestic, credit-bearing experiences tied to a full semester course, typically spring. Faculty develop the syllabus and specific course outcomes, and hold class meetings before and after the travel component, to prepare for and unpack the Travel Seminar itself.

Program proposals are welcomed in the spring semester of the year prior to proposed travel. When the proposal period has opened, the Center for International Education & Study Away (CIESA) will notify CAS and SBS leadership, who will then send their faculty a call for proposals.

Program Proposal Forms [PDF] are due to your Dean by April 15. The Deans will review all proposals and submit their approved programs to CIESA as a package. CIESA will then work with the faculty leaders of all selected programs to prepare the Request for Proposals form and refine the program budget.

Please review the CIESA Study Abroad Faculty Leader Handbook [PDF] while preparing. It also may be helpful to read the Standards of Good Practice For Short-Term Education [PDF].

For more information, see the Travel Seminar FAQs and contact us with any questions.

Academic Travel Seminar FAQs

As part of your program proposal, you will submit a syllabus and CIESA will review the proposal and syllabus, consulting with Department chairs, Deans, and Risk Management when necessary. Once approved, CIESA will send your Request for Proposals (RFP) [DOC] to potential in-country partners. You will then work with CIESA to select a provider, finalize itineraries and budgets, and prepare for student recruitment in the fall.

You will go through most of the same steps for a repeat program as you would for a new program; the difference is how much work is needed at each step.

The Proposal Form is still required for your Dean to know that you would like to run the Travel Seminar again and for CIESA to be able to create your academic course. The RFP may not be needed if you plan to use the same partner, but if you would like to explore other partners, we can simply update your RFP from previous years. The budget, itinerary, syllabus, and online brochure can all be updated instead of created new. Recruitment will also be able to rely on engaging with past participants, and we encourage this!

Typically, Academic Travel Seminars run in the spring, either at the beginning of January, over spring break, or at the end of the semester. If planned for the end of the semester, travel seminars must fall within academic period regulations and cannot interfere with final exams. Summer travel seminars are possible, but there are financial aid considerations.

Date Detail
March CIESA info session: Proposing an Academic Travel Seminar
April 15 Program Proposal [PDF] form is due to deans for review
May–June Faculty work with CIESA to finalize budget and program details for the Request For Proposals
Mid-June Finalized Request for Proposals form is sent to providers
Mid-July Finalized proposals are received and contracts are signed
August 15 Course information, dates, prices are finalized and posted on the website.
September 1 Applications open
September Recruitment, including the study abroad fair, takes place
Faculty are required to attend
October 15 Application deadline
November Acceptance decisions are released, student pre-departure orientation and a faculty workshop are scheduled
Spring Semester* Programs travel at various times throughout the semester

*Exact dates are to be decided and dependent on individual programs.

Many faculty want to propose a Travel Seminar because they have experience or interest in a specific location, which brings good knowledge to the experience for students. . It is not necessary to have contacts in-country prior to proposal. CIESA and Suffolk work with a wide range of domestic and study abroad partners around the world who can put together a comprehensive program proposal for us. If you do have in-country contacts, they will take those into consideration when building an itinerary.

If you have an idea for an academic topic that would benefit from an international perspective and you know the academic outcomes you are looking for, but you don’t have a connection to a specific location, CIESA and our partners can offer suggestions to help you choose a destination that meets the academic and cultural needs of your course.

Yes. Suffolk University requires that all international Academic Travel Seminars collaborate with an approved study abroad partner. These partners play a crucial role in handling logistics, coordinating academic excursions, and offering risk management support. The extent of their involvement can vary significantly: some partners design and execute the entire itinerary, while others provide essential support as faculty members organize and plan the program.

Partners can sometimes be US-based providers that specialize in international programs, others are our international university partners who have an internal team to support programs, and others are organizations based in the host country that have a more localized expertise. You may have a partner in mind already, but CIESA has a growing list of trusted partners for you to explore.

It’s best practice to have two leaders on each program. Having a secondary leader allows a faculty member who hasn’t led a program yet to gain experience before becoming the primary leader on their own program. You will always have logistical support from your program partner on the ground.

All program costs, including faculty travel expenses, are covered by student participants through a program fee charged in addition to regular tuition. Due to this, we work hard to keep costs low. When you work with CIESA to build the program budget, you will review all anticipated expenses, and the final program fee is set to cover those costs. The revenue from this fee is routed to CIESA who manages the payment of all invoices.

Faculty receive their regular compensation for teaching the course, and all necessary travel expenses are included in the program budget.

Yes! We work hard to ensure that programs are affordable, but we have also identified several Study Abroad scholarships, both internal and external, for which our students can apply. Talk with Study Abroad’s program managers if you have any questions.

CIESA will support recruitment but faculty leaders are the primary point of contact for recruiting. CIESA will build an online program brochure for each program, and we can support you with marketing materials. Program-specific info sessions and meetings are the responsibility of the faculty leaders.

You will always have an in-country contact through your program partner who will be available 24/7 during an emergency. From Suffolk’s side, you can reach out through the Crisis 24 app to get in touch with the Emergency Response Team.